Monday, June 21, 2010

The rapper Fat Joe was detained by police Sunday night after he and his entourage were accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Madison, Wisconsin. According to TMZ, the woman is 33-years old and claims the assault occurred in a Cadillac Limousine after a concert at the Orpheum Theater.

Fat Joe (a.k.a.Joseph Antonio Cartagena) and his entourage were held for questioning, but he was released and not arrested. The details of the case are still being sorted out in the investigation. Relative to most artists, Fat Joe doesn't get into very much trouble. The 39-year old married father of two has not, to my knowledge been accused of any sexual assault, so I'd be surprised if he waited this long to get started. He has been arrested in some of the typical rapper non-sense in the past: In 1998, he and the deceased rapper Big Pun were arrested for assaulting a man with a baseball bat and stealing his gold chain. I'm not even going to try to explain that one.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Father's Day usually occurs on my birthday, which is both exciting and a little bit sad. With each birthday, I feel like I'm on a slow ship to an unforeseen destination, with each birthday reminding me that I've passed another landmark. I keep wondering why birthdays show up around the same time every year, and I'm still hopeful that the trend will discontinue at some point. Wait, let me rephrase that.....if my birthdays stop coming then I'll be, well..... you know.

At any rate, when my birthday hits, doubled-up with Father's Day, I am led to evaluate my life and myself. I evaluate my life to see if I am the same man this year that I was last year; the truth is that I should have grown in some meaningful way or achieved something positive. I also evaluate myself as a father to see if I am getting at least a little bit better at making myself the kind of man that my kids need me to be.

The analogies used by Professor Hawkins are thought-provoking and appear to be alarmist at first glance. After all, citizens are commonly comparing nearly every modern-day injustice to slavery in order to make a dramatic point. But in this case, the analogies are appropriate, in large part because slavery is not a dichotomy. Instead, it is actually a continuum, with complete freedom on one end and total servitude on the other. One could even argue that slaves themselves were not completely devoid of freedom, since they could have always chosen to run away, buy their freedom, maim themselves or even commit suicide as a way to escape their condition. The point of this very grim example is not to say that slavery was not entirely horrific; rather, it is to say that something does not have to be entirely horrific to be compared to slavery.

Professor Billy Hawkins of The University of Georgia has released a controversial new book that describes the experiences of NCAA athletes by comparing them to slaves on a plantation. According to the research of professor Hawkins, black athletes are exploited by the NCAA physically, financially and intellectually.

Hawkins cites the massive revenue earned by the NCAA via March Madness, which includes a 14-year, $10.8 billion contract with CBS sports. In spite of seemingly unlimited revenues to encourage athletes to stay focused academically, Hawkins notes that nearly one-fifth of the 64 teams participating in the NCAA tournament had graduation rates of less than 40 percent. Across the 36 sports monitored by the NCAA, men's basketball has the lowest graduation rates, where less than two-thirds of the players earn degrees.

The dismal graduation numbers for the NCAA support Dr. Hawkins' research, in which he argues and shows that black athletes at predominantly white institutions are being exploited while being neglected academically. In his book, "The New Plantation," the well-respected Professor of Sport Management and Policy uses a plantation model to present the black male athletic experience as part of a broader historical context.

William Butler Yeats did a good job of capturing a harrowing pandemonium in his poem, The Second Coming. He wrote, in 1919

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

I was twice introduced to the poem in college, first in a class that required the study of English poets, then in a class that examined African literature, including the powerful novel of Nigerian colonization by Chinua Achebe, ironically titled, Things Fall Apart. The poem is so emblazoned on my brain that from time to time it comes to mind, most recently when I contemplate the BP oil spill, its damages, its consequences, and its handling.

I am writing from the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Conference, 55 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 people and started an oil leak that apparently continues. While BP says that the leak was only 5000 barrels of oil a day, scientists estimate that between 20,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil leaked each day between April 22 until June 3. If you use the midpoint of 30,000 barrels and a period of 42 days (assuming all leaking stopped when a dome to catch some of the leak was installed on June 3), we are talking at least 1.2 million barrels of an oil leak.

Friday, June 18, 2010

A recent report to be published Thursday in the Boston Globe is set to show that the Cambridge Police Department does not use racial profiling, as it was accused of doing during the controversial case last summer involving Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates. The report, compiled by the New England Center of Investigative Reporting, analyzed 392 disorderly conduct arrests between 2004 and 2009. During that time, 57 percent of those arrested were white, and 34 percent were black. These numbers almost directly mirror the percentages in the community in which the arrests were made.

I did a great deal of CNN commentary on the Henry Louis Gates case, and to the ire of some of my fellow black scholars at Harvard, I firmly held the position that the Gates case was not about racial profiling. Not to say that the officer didn't violate procedure, but the truth is that there was almost nothing about that case that made me believe that Professor Gates was arrested because he was black.

Rev. Al Sharpton and I are going to be on MSNBC Thursday morning at 10 am - don't forget that you can also hear us on his radio show every Monday at 1:15 pm EST (SharptonTalk.net). Also, to all the high school graduates out there, I want to encourage you to do the following: 1) Value education more than anything - it's probably the most important thing you'll ever have (so get as much of it as you can), 2) Pursue your goals relentless - working consistently toward something for 5 - 10 hours a day will always yield results, 3) Think like bosses, not laborers - get a great job, but eventually work to put yourself in a position to create jobs by owning your own business and financial assets, 4) Remember that life is a journey of love - money and career mean very little compared to how you treated the people you care about. Life is too short to be mediocre - always do your best.

Dr. Boyce: How the Lakers-Celtics Rivalry Saved the NBA Both 30 Years Ago and Today

The NBA finals are not what you think. You see, you’re watching the finals hoping that either the Lakers or the Celtics win, and wondering whether Kobe Bryant can outscore Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and the army of tall brothers that Boston is flying across the country to conquer Los Angeles. That is not, my friends, the first thing on the mind NBA Commissioner David Stern.

First of all, Stern is wondering why LeBron James isn’t here. Most of us expected, to the disdain of every other talented player in the league, that this would be the year that LeBron would take his rightful place on the Post-Jordan throne. The natural and inevitable coronation of King James was part of the NBA marketing strategy, thus allowing Stern and company to make even bigger money in the Chinese market, where the fans want to see their All Stars become champions. As we all know, it didn’t happen.

The second thought on Stern’s very sharp mind is that the finals he got this year, a renewal of the historic rivalry between the LA Lakers and Boston Celtics, is just as good, or better than what he would have gotten had King James shown up to play. You see, there’s history here, and most of the relevant history isn’t about wins and losses on the court.

What does Barack Obama Have in Common with 50 Cent?

SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2010

This video is storming the web - a cop in Paterson, NJ is caught on tape macing a black man on the ground. ;

The Age of the Hoochie Mama is Over: It's Time for Hip Hop to Grow Up

Lil Wayne disrespects women because he's allowed to.

In 2004, the women at Spelman College told the rapper Nelly to take a hike for sliding a credit card through a woman’s backside. The women told Nelly to take his music elsewhere, and his concert was cancelled. I thought that after this incident, women across America would slide their own credit card in the other direction, away from the record stores and websites used to purchase music from artists who make it their mission in life to disrespect black women. I have to admit that I was wrong.

What has always amazed me is the fact that we have trained young people to endure and embrace consistent disrespect from rappers like Slim Thug, who recently stated that white women are a far better choice for relationships, and Lil Wayne, who has done everything in his power to show just how little regard he has for African American females. Wayne even has a song called Alphabet B*tches, which isn’t exactly like the ABCs you learned in preschool. For some reason, we all keep dancing to the beat and showing up for concerts, reminding the artist that freedom of speech is in full effect, no matter how harmful that speech may be.

This message was sent from Dr. Boyce Watkins: Your Black World to bwatkins@twcny.rr.com. It was sent from: Dr. Boyce Watkins, 23F Queens Way, Camillus, ny 13031. You can modify/update your subscription via the link below.